Belzona 1391T application in action (photo: Belzona)

Belzona’s largest single project to date consisted of lining 143 pressure vessels operating at the oil and gas field off the north east coast of Qatar in the Persian Gulf.

Located in Southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border, the oilfield spreads over a 1,800 km² area. In 2009, a USD 15 billion service contract was signed for its development. Group of asset owners have taken a leading role in developing the field with the most advanced technologies of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) by water injection.

In 2011, FEED work has commenced on the Produced Water Re-Injection (PWRI) Project Phase 1. PWRI is an important strategy for deriving value from waste water and is implemented due to increasing discharge treatment costs and the tightening of environmental regulations.

PWRI in turn consists of two packages: Cluster Pump Stations and an Integrated Processing Complex (IPC). The IPC package includes not only the central processing facility for oil, gas, condensate and water separation, but also water treatment facilities. Due to the field’s substantial size, there will be two water treatment facilities for re-injection, one in the North and one in the South.

New process vessels were required to deliver the IPC package including 10 desalters, 10 dehydrators and 20 degassers. Manufactured in China, design temperature for each of these vessels is 100° C/212° F with a pressure of 15 bar.

Produced from carbon steel, additional corrosion protection inside these vessels was a must. Alloy 625 cladding was first considered for protecting newbuild vessels as a familiar solution. However, the client wanted to reduce capital investment cost without compromising on quality. They wanted a reliable vessel lining solution, which could be delivered in any part of the world.

Between 1996 and 2014, over 830 newbuild process vessels around the world have been protected with a Belzona lining.

“To supplement anecdotal evidence from the field, a European Engineering Design house once compared economic gain over the lifetime of the slug catcher. A traditional 625 stainless steel cladding was compared to a Belzona lining. Assuming that cladded steel would remain maintenance-free over the lifetime of the asset, they factored in touch-up repairs for the Belzona-lined steel every five years. Adding up CAPEX and OPEX, the Belzona option turned out to be 3.5 times more cost-effective.”

For these 40 newbuild vessels, Belzona lining was ultimately found to be the most cost-effective corrosion protection solution. Based on the temperatures, pressures, type of media and preferred application method (hand-applied), Belzona 1391T was chosen alongside inserts manufactured from Belzona 1111 (Super Metal) for small bore nozzle protection. More than 800 nozzle inserts were required.

Vessels were internally lined with a two-coat Belzona 1391T system. Small bore nozzles were protected by bonding in preformed Belzona 1111 nozzle inserts. All vessels were coated at the fabricator yards in China before shipment and installation on site.

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